


It's Lonely in the Fields

by OldSportSquared



Category: Original Work
Genre: Coming In Pants, M/M, Scarecrow - Freeform, Scarecrow on Human Love, bring your own tags, the farmhand has brought his own booze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23845447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldSportSquared/pseuds/OldSportSquared
Summary: Simon's been alone a very long time. The scarecrow has been alone even longer.
Relationships: Lonely Farmhand/Creepy Scarecrow, Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15
Collections: What Fen Do (Instead of Going Outside)





	It's Lonely in the Fields

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fairleigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fairleigh/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this Scarecrow/Lonely Farmhand pinch hit!

It’s been six days since he’s talked to another person. 

It’s not a _problem_ as such _._ The time before that it’d been sixteen days. Sometimes, it can be even more than that at a stretch. There’s been winters when he can go one month to the next, without seeing another human face. He’s used to it. Or will get used to it at any rate, just needs time to adjust. Perhaps another couple of years. 

The farmer expects, demands self sufficiency. Comes by with odd job lots of supplies, sometimes just drops them off with a wave of the hand and he’s off. Josh understands, mostly. The job had been made clear from the beginning, Farmer John’s hands blunt and flat on the table as he poked at a grubby piece of paper. “Bought this from Hunter,” he’d said, thumb on a little bit of marked land, straight to the point. “His missus died and he moved in with the grandkids. Planned to buy this,” and again the thumb had jabbed at the paper, skidding across the gap that marked Farmer John’s land from his purchase. “Wouldn’t sell.”

Farmer John’s words are sparing, spat through gritted teeth like he begrudged each and every one of them. His hands mostly do the talking, he doesn’t offer food, he hacks bread from the loaf and lays it on a plate, pushes it across the table, doesn’t offer a hello, just a short sharp jerk of his hand up in acknowledgement. He’s trained his dog almost as well as he’s trained his farmhands, the collie at his feet doesn’t need anything more than a whistle to do it’s duty. 

Simon had got the gist though. Farmer John had expected to join his larger farm up with the little smallholding he’d acquired, by swallowing up the land in between, a great ravenous land eating spider. Frustrated in that, he’d decided to farm it as an individual patch, hire a man to work it alone like Hunter had done, alone, even though it was easy a three man job.

Farmer John’s wife, Marianne had explained it to him later, only a little more free with her words than her husband, but almost garrulous in comparison. “It’s slow enough up there,” she’d said. “You won’t have any neighbours, but Hunter’s place is good, built to last. You don’t mind the quiet?”

He hadn’t known he was lying at the time when he’d said he enjoyed it.

A year later and if he was asked the same question, he might not have been able to stop laughing long enough to answer it.

The silence is almost a living thing, more alive than the crops, than the birds in the trees and the shrill piping sound that they make, that barely makes a dent. When Simon works in the sheds, on the nearest boundary walls, cuts back the woody undergrowth that threatens to encroach, as he rakes and sweats and wastes his life fighting weeds, he keeps the transistor radio on, tinny and alive, doesn’t care about the station as it tilts between them, fighting for the scraps of signal. It’s the only thing between him and the oppressiveness of the quietness. 

When he goes further out, out into the fields, walks the land to inspect the crops and the ground for suspicious insects or the spreading creep of disease, the signal generally stutters out, dies into the thin screech of white noise, empty airwaves, until he flicks it off. He talks to himself sometimes, nothing deep, just mutters about where he left the shears, considerations on what should be done first, muffled stuttered curses when he realises he’s forgotten his gloves. He can’t blame that on the quiet though, he’s always done that. “Nothing wrong with it,” his mother used to say. “You’re your own best company sometimes.”

When he’s out this way he catches himself talking to the scarecrow sometimes as well though, and that is _definitely_ the quiet getting to him. Not often, it’s not like their paths cross anymore than Simon ever wants them to. But if he perches on the fence next to him and looks away, just a sliver of a coat and the tilt of a hat in his peripheral vision, he can almost pretend it’s another person. There’s something comforting in that, in the steady presence, and not for the first time he wonders if he’s going mad. 

“Is it madness if nobody’s there to see it?” he asks the scarecrow rhetorically, and out of the corner of his eye, he can almost see it nodding. It’s the wind of course.

“Fuck off,” he says jokingly anyway. “You’re supposed to be a friend.” He does turn then, peers at the painted smile on the scarecrow’s face. Best thing in the world to tell a joke to, he reckons, you’re guaranteed to get a smirk of appreciation. 

He supposes Hunter had to have made it, or maybe his wife had before she died. It’s the sturdiest scarecrow he’s ever seen, no limp rag stuffed monstrosity thrust on a stick to slump in a field forever. This one wears dirty blue jeans that are stuffed solid and thick, one knee bent. The way the pole holds it up, it looks like it’s slouching, arms around the wooden cross, head rakishly to one side, hat balanced at an angle that should make it fall off, if it hadn’t been skewered firmly on with what Simon thinks might be hat pins.

In some old joke, there’s a bulge in the jeans, and Simon decides out loud that his second guess was right, this was Mrs Hunter’s handiwork. The face is the creepiest part, but that’s pretty much in line with his experience with scarecrows. He supposes no face made to stare out into the distance forever can be expected to be beautiful, and at least this one has all the traditional customary features - eyes, nose, mouth, and the sewing is neat and tight, only wisps of straw poking from the neck.

It’s undoubtedly creepy, but more than that, it looks about as lonely as Simon feels. Moved by impulse, he taps it on a sun-warmed shoulder and looks up at the sky above where a couple of black specks are moving in circles. “Do your duty soldier.” 

The wood creaks a little as though in answer, and Simon jumps down off the fence and picks up his tools. When he looks back up at the sky, the blue is as endless as anything he’s ever seen, empty as the field’s around him, not even the two birds there a minute before. He’s tempted to take the day off, first time he’s been tempted in a long time. But there’s no days off when he’s the only one here, any work he leaves undone, will just be there tomorrow. There’s nothing for it, but to get back to the job. He'll leave what passes for company right here. "Should move you down near the house. Company for the evening."

When he gets back to the house, radio in his hand - completely and utterly dead, batteries run dry. Farmer John’s been and went, blocky list in careful pained print left behind on the table, date he’ll be back with the planting machine circled, instructions for the planting preparation, and a note from Marianne at the bottom. _Enjoy the bread. John’ll bring you back for dinner next week._

The bread sits in it’s own muslin bag, warm to the touch still, on top of the other goods. Farmer John’s a hard man and drives a hard bargain, but he keeps his side of the deal. A job, food, free board a little money in the bank, and all Simon needs to give is approximately twelve hours of solid labour. It’s not the worst agreement he’s ever made. After six years of killing himself in further education, it's a positive relief.

Even though the day had been warm for spring, the cloudless sky had done it’s worst. Every bit of the unexpected heat of the day is gone, sudden cold in the house, and not for the first time Simon wonders how the previous occupants had lived with it. Hunter had either not believed in modern convenience or not had the money to indulge it. The only even vaguely new thing in the entire house was the refrigerator, and indoor heating had apparently been beyond imagination. He knows the drill by now though, thick socks, and early to bed and early to rise like any good farmer. Tonight it’ll be without the benefit of the radio as he’s out of batteries.

Upstairs he’s mostly left untouched, there’s a bedroom furnished in delicate blue and a bed that gives him the creeps to even think about, dent in the lace frilled pillow and all. Instead he’s set up shop in the second room downstairs, just off the living room, makes sense if the stove’s on, steady heat taking the edge off, only himself and the spiders for company. 

Before he’d come here, the last book he’d read had been right before he crashed and burned out of grad school. He thinks it was Of Mice and Men, a city man’s fantasy of a country man’s dream. Now, driven mad by boredom, he’s found himself on the odd occasion, when he gets really desperate reading anything he can get his hands on. Mostly though the books are bodice rippers, hundreds of them, stacked in untidy piles in the attic, but there’s a few other ones interspersed, next to what was clearly the entire homebrew collection of the Hunter family for the possible last half century. If he were a real drinking man, he’d probably be dead by now. 

As it is, he samples it cautiously from time to time, tonight it’s a glass of indeterminate alcohol, purplish in colour with a strong scent of what he can only describe as “some kind of fruit”. It’s not worth putting on the stove in the next room, but he’s built a fire with a few of the twigs he usually keeps around. Not much for real heat, but the fire’s company. He’s neck deep in the ravishment of Gabriella the strong willed heiress, when he hears the tap on the window. 

The thing about silence is that it’s honed him to hear sound where there isn’t any, let alone where there is. He’s been here a year. He knows the house inside out, the gentle sighing sounds it makes as it settles down to sleep around him. The creak in the third step if you walk on the middle of the wood. The way the refrigerator whirrs every hour or so at a heightened pitch, presumably facing it’s own demons. The sounds he makes himself as he curls up, the only human breath for tens of miles around, might be as well be alone in the world for all that he can tell different. Usually the radio covers up anything happening outside.

He puts Gabriella and her troubles face down on the ground and puts the glass next to her, listens again, hears the faint puff of his own breath, the sharp pop of a resiny twig in the fire. 

Simon’s about to relax, when he hears it again. The tap of a tree branch at the window of a house two hundred metres from the nearest tree. He squeezes his eyes shut for a second, dark on the other side and takes a deep breath. It isn’t the first thing he’s imagined. It’s just the most benign. Maybe it’s a bird, a lost house martin taking a cautious peck. Or Farmer John overcome with shyness. 

The half glass of homebrew in his veins gives him enough strength to chuckle at that mental image and he gets up with full intent to shoo the bird away. The lamp in the room has left the outside world completely black, and he presses his face up to the condensation rimed glass to peer outside. There’s nothing there obviously and he’s already muttering to himself as he turns round to head back to the fireplace and his bed.

There’s someone sitting there. 

He thinks it might be three or four books ago that Laurela the proud brunette beauty confronted with the murderer of her fiance had had her blood run icy in her veins and he hadn’t understood what the hell that meant until this second. He feels like ice water’s been run through him, pumped by a remorseless hand, every bit of him soaked except his mouth which is too dry to speak.

The head turns towards him, and oh God, he’s going to die, it’s the scarecrow from the field. The mouth - no longer painted on - opens and the thing speaks. “I didn’t think you could hear me knock. You usually can’t.”

Simon is torn between two feelings of conflicting strength. One is fear, obviously. The other is self justification. The second one, honed by a lifetime of giving excuses comes uppermost. “I usually have the radio on.”

The presumably straw stuffed shoulders rise in a shrug. “I always listen to you.”

Somewhere in the back of Simon’s mind he thinks dimly _oh fuck._ In the midst of all his panic, he finds a tiny bit of him is still combing back through every single time he’s ever said something stupid to what he’d thought was a silent figure in the fields. He thinks that he’s going to die, and that the last thing he’s ever going to think of is taking a piss within the direct eyeline of the thing that’s going to kill him.

Only, it isn’t moving. It’s sitting there looking at him, and the dim lamplight is illuminating what is undoubtedly puzzlement on its face. He’s not entirely sure how that works with the painted expression. The startled eyebrows definitely help. He notices for the first time that in the scarecrow’s gloved hand is the glass he’d poured his home brew into, the clumsy fingers tight. 

The only thing he can think to say in some sort of hopeless postponement of death is “do you want a refill?”

The scarecrow looks down at it’s hand. Simon doesn’t want to ask if it’s actually drinking the stuff or where it’s going for that matter. “Yes, thanks. It’s been a long time.”

In the kitchen Simon looks at himself in the little mirror wreathed with painted flowers that hands above the mantel and wonders distinctly if this is it, if he’s finally cracked. There’s a scarecrow sitting in what’s serving as his bedroom and presumably it’s going to kill him. And it wants a drink before it does.

The obvious thing to do, is to run. But however strong he is, however fast, there’s no denying that there’s nowhere to run to. And that little as he knows about whatever this thing is, it probably gets less tired than flesh and blood. The only consolation is that as of this moment, it does seem distinctly more interested in the drink part of the evening. And Simon isn’t a fool. 

He grabs the bottle, another glass, and after rifling through the drawers, tucks a lighter and a box of matches into his pocket. Attack is the best form of defense, somebody famous definitely said that. 

If he’d quietly hoped that the figure was a hallucination and that it’d be gone by the time he got back, he was doomed to be disappointed. The scarecrow had discarded it’s coat, a muddled pile on the floor, and was holding its _sticks_ to the fire for all in the world as if it was cold. The sight of it muddles what clearness he’s managed to claw back, but he walks forward. This isn’t even the hardest thing he’s done in his life. 

As he splashes a little more into the scarecrow’s glass, he dares a quick look at it’s face. It’s looking at the glass as he pours, but he can still see the half human, half alien cast of it’s features. It’s not quite what he sees in the fields. It’s eyes aren’t buttons for a start, the mouth isn’t just a painted line on its face. But it has the same eyebrows still, the same shocked stare, and when he looks closer, there’s the distinct line of stitching down it’s neck. The sight of it brings the full force of unreality back to him. What the hell is happening?

There’s only one other place to sit in the room, and that’s on the bit of the bed that the scarecrow has considerately left to him. He sits down, glass clutched in one hand, the weight of the matches in his pocket. “Sorry I didn’t catch your name,” he says, and he could almost kill himself before the creepy scarecrow gets to it. What famous last words. 

The scarecrow doesn’t seem offended. “Will,” he offers, and Simon had been expecting something altogether woodier. The voice doesn’t go with the name, the scarecrow - _Will’s_ voice is soft and slurred, bears more in common with the sound that branches make as they rub together in the wind. “I know you’re Simon.”

Of course he knows. The birds probably told him. Simon takes a gulp from his glass and it burns all the way down, a false sense of warmth inside him. 

Beside him Will shifts. It’s hard now that he’s put a name to it, to take the name back. What he really wants to ask is _are you going to kill me?_ Or failing that, _how are you alive?_ Or, the morbidly curious bit of him wants to know _do you just stand around in the field all day? Do you walk around when I’m not there?_ Simon plays it safe. “Why tonight?”

“You said,” Will says. There’s a little bit of a shift in the timbre of his voice, he sounds a little surprised maybe. “Said to come visit you, be some company.”

He had said it, Will wasn’t wrong. The rest of the glass follows the first gulp. This wasn’t the first time his big mouth had got him in trouble, just the most awkward. He’s trying not to watch the way Will tips the glass up to his own mouth or where it’s going. 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I did.”

“It’s lonely out there,” Will says. “It’s been a long, long time since I spoke to anyone.” Simon can tell he’s not really talking to him, he’s heard that same tone in his own voice when he thinks he’s the only one in a room. He can empathise though. It might have been six days since he spoke to Farmer John, but he can’t remember the last time he’d had a real conversation. It might be the alcohol that makes him relax suddenly, but he’s no longer really afraid. Whatever Will is, Simon knows this kind of feeling.

“What made you want to talk to me?” he asks, and is still pretty proud that his voice doesn’t shake. 

Beside him Will shrugs, an awkward shambling motion. If Simon looks forward, just stares out the window, this time he can almost imagine that Will _isn’t_ alive. Is just a bundle of sticks in a coat. “You talk to me,” he says, almost inaudibly. “You touched my arm today. Said to come visit you,” and suddenly impossibly there’s a hand, a sort of hand on his knee, warm but patently not human. 

Simon’s being hit on by a scarecrow. If he thinks too hard about it, he might just go mad. There’s a bit of his mind though that’s placidly accepting. Whatever this is, it’s not real. He’s dreaming. Hunter’s punch wine has been dosed with the local variety of mushroom. He’s in a coma right now and the doctors have been giving him morphine for days. With that in mind, he doesn’t scream. 

If this is a construction of his mind, it’s a painfully spot on one. The last time he’d been touched by anything even approximating a man had been two weeks before he’d taken this job, had been the _reason_ he’d taken this job, the reason he’d been willing to take the first thing offered, flee to lick his wounds somewhere as far as he possibly go. So maybe there’s more than one reason he doesn’t scream. There’s not many choices here. Either this is real and that’s not really a possibility he’s ready to cope with, or it’s not real, and anything that occurs, it’s just masturbation. Maybe his mind juggling the possibilities of having wood.

With that in mind, he slides his own hand across Will’s, doesn’t know what to call what he encounters, whether it’s gloves or skin. It’s rough under his fingertips, more like cotton than skin, but warm and real. Beneath whatever it is, there’s the ridges of something hard and solid whether that’s bones or sticks. Whatever Will is, he’s alive and vital, present in a place of emptiness. He thinks if he closes his eyes, he could believe this is OK. He can't bring himself to do it though, watches in fascination as his own hand closes around whatever passes for a hand for Will. He can feel the careful pressure, the weight of their combined hands against his skin, draws in a deep breath and notes the fact that Will doesn't.

"Is this real?" he asks, might as well make the attempt. Maybe he fell asleep twenty years ago, and his mind has finally resorted to this. 

Will's answer is profoundly unhelpful. "Do you want it to be?"

The answer to that isn't as easy as it looks. He doesn't, but if he says that and it's real, it's probably impolitic. He doesn't say anything and that appears to be enough. Their hands remain on Simon's knee, and almost without conscious volition, he finds himself dragging his fingers up the cloth/skin to meet what he imagines to be the join of that with the straw that stuffs Will's body. There isn't one as far as he can tell, but Will's turning, and Simon has to close his eyes now, because he can take the abstract, but not the reality. In the darkness behind his eyes, he hears Will click off the lampshade, and when he reopens them all he can see is the smouldering dying embers of the fire, and feel Will's other hand against his neck, coarse prickle of it against his skin, tiny drag of fibres, and he has a vivid sense memory of another time and place, touching himself through his underwear, the too near scratch of it, dulled and heightened sensation at the same time. He can hear his breath in the quiet of the room, sudden and urgent, a little panicked. 

The next minute, Will's kissing him, at least, it's a pseudo-kiss. His mind reminds him, a little hysterically, that whether this is real or not that he's kissing a scarecrow. The only frame of reference he has is human beings, and this is barely a kiss by those standards. There's a mouth against his, there's the hot dampness of his own breath, the press and catch of lips, but that's all there is, a narcissist's framing of a kiss. He can feel Will pull him closer as though that will eliminate the essential distance between them, feels his own hand clutch at the roughness of Will's sleeve, can't tell for a horrible second whether what he's touching is putative skin or clothing. Regardless, he's hard, and the realisation is a shock, followed closely by Will touching him through his pyjamas, a firm grip that, two layers of cloth apart feels similar to the real thing. 

Simon's reaction is automatic, he's jerking forward almost uncontrollably, shredded by a year of a celibacy, unable to even pretend this isn't a relief, whatever it is. They're still half-kissing, the rough ridge of Will's mouth against his own, and unthinking, he presses his tongue against the burlap of Will's mouth, doesn't shudder away at the touch, rough rasp of fabric against his tongue, draws a little bit of it within his teeth and bites down. He's can't be sure what, if any of this is translating into enjoyment for Will, but he's making his best effort regardless. Will's hand is still tracing him through his pyjama bottoms, careful grasp as though he's not entirely sure in his own right of what will translate to pleasure. Somewhere along the way, he's closed his eyes again, even in the darkness of the room, his sight utterly divorced from the sensation. 

He debates for a second what he does next, but if there's one thing an overpriced education has done for him, it's provided a quote for every occasion. In this case it's something about wading in straw too deep to pull back, and he doesn't dispute it. It takes about a second to straddle Will's knees, even if for a second the peculiar sensation of too soft legs and too sharp bones throws him off. The warmth of something living this close cancels that out, and he doesn't care enough anymore to be embarrassed about that. He's grinding down as best as he can, and Will's hands are curled around him, the left one slipping between his shirt and his skin, the other still pressing against Simon's cock, even between them, as though he wants something Simon isn't providing. There's nothing graceful about this, and Simon loses what little composure he has, when he realises that as best as he can, Will's thrusting up between them as well, soft bulge of his cock against his jeans. 

There's only a fraction of hesitation before he touches it, soft heavy weight between them, big enough to be hard but not feeling it, and Will's thrusting up, and Simon can't see his face, not really like this, just moves against him helplessly, and it's been so fucking long, that just this is enough. He doesn't need anything more, just the uncertain rasp of feeling, Will's too soft touch, and his own hand, presses them together as best as he can, rocks against their joined hands and the soft mound of Will's dick, and Will's holding him closer now, hips a little more urgent, still wooden and jerky like nothing's moving quite right or as expected and Simon comes pretty much like that, embarrassing as it is. Will's still rocking against him, and Simon helps him out, presses him closer and Will holds him there, movements insistent now, until he stiffens and turns his head away, even though there's no light to betray whatever expression is crossing his features, and Simon can guess that Will's come as well, if coming can describe it, hands more twig like than ever, raking down his back. 

Simon's still trying to catch his breath, can feel his face sore around his mouth now, his bottoms clinging and damp, slowly lets himself climb off, sense of the ridiculous growing stronger with every moment. Now would be a good time to wake up. Or maybe wait until the nurse had had a chance to clean up. There's something too visceral about it though, too real for him to believe in it's unreality. He's sitting there again beside Scarecrow Will and he's going to have to talk about this. Or would, if Will wasn't bending down to reach for his coat on the floor and Simon doesn't dare look at Will's feet or lack of them. Somewhere beneath everything else, he wants to make a joke about poles, but he can't quite connect it with everything that's just happened. 

He doesn't even realise until Will's stood up, how cold the room is. It feels like an unpleasant metaphor for every other night he's spent without company, even if it a scarecrow that his own mind's dreamt up, but the words stick in his throat. 

Will it appears is better at impossible last words. "You know where to find me," he says, and his voice still sounds like tree branches, thin scrape of them.

When Simon turns the light back on he's gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Things not included in this fic, use of the words scarecock or meeting on Tinder-wood


End file.
